


Intro to Business

by aesoprock



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Aged-Up Losers Club (IT), Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Competition, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Jealousy, M/M, Mental Instability, Minor Character Death, No Smut, Secrets, Strangers to Enemies to Lovers, Writer Bill Denbrough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 16,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24979516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesoprock/pseuds/aesoprock
Summary: New to Derry, Stanley takes a business class to please his parents.A resident of Derry for 15 years, Bill returns to high school and tries to recover.Published 6/29/20 - 7/26/20
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Stanley Uris
Comments: 42
Kudos: 50





	1. August 14th, 2019

The teacher arrived late to class. Stan studied his graying hair, the way he hunched over, and the tattered suitcase he was carrying.

Stan didn’t expect to learn much from his first period  _ Introduction to Business _ class.

Mr. Wilson- that was his name, Stanley had read it on his schedule that morning while trying to find the classroom- set his suitcase down on the floor near his desk, and turned to face his new students as he started to take his windbreaker off. “Sorry, sorry,” he said with a cheerful laugh and a sheepish smile. “Family emergency. Everybody stand up.”

_ He’s giving us a seating chart.  _ Stan didn’t actually hate seating charts- he didn’t have friends in this class, let alone the school- but most teachers who gave seating charts were stuck-up old hags. The kind of teachers that gave out detentions for so much as dropping something or walking to the pencil sharpener the wrong way. Still, Stanley stood up from his seat, picking up his backpack from his desk. Every desk had a computer on top of it. This surprised him- at his old school, they were too poor to afford three computer labs- but this was a small school. It was obvious that Derry High had better funding.

At the front of the classroom, Mr. Wilson squinted down at the roster.  _ Dingbat probably can’t even see,  _ he muttered in his head, looking around at the other students in his classroom. None of them were speaking to each other. In fact, everyone had been relatively quiet since he arrived, and Stan wondered why that was. Did nobody know each other, or did Mr. Wilson have a… reputation?

Wilson started listing off names, and Stanley soon realized that it wasn’t in alphabetical order. It seemed random. He started with the far left, first row. Stan watched his new classmates make way to their new seats through narrowed eyes. Maybe Mr. Wilson was putting the “troublemakers” there first, so he could keep an eye on them. Their seats were opposite from Mr. Wilson’s desk, though, so maybe it was the opposite.

“On the right side, let’s have…” he spoke, pausing before he read the first name. “William Denbrough. Ah, Mr. Denbrough! It’s nice to have you here again,” he said with a smile. Stan wondered if Mr. Wilson wasn’t so bad after all. He just seemed like a nice, genuine… old man. “Next to him, Mr. Uris.”

Stanley slipped out from behind his row and sat in his new seat, realizing that Mr. Wilson had just greeted the boy next to him. Nice to have you here…  _ again?  _ Why would someone take an Intro to Business class twice? Stan wondered if “William” failed the class once as he set his bag down. 

Will (Bill?) Denbrough didn’t even acknowledge Stan as he pulled his chair closer to his desk. He was busy logging into his computer, and once he had Google Chrome open, he Googled “snake game” and busied himself with the arrow keys. Stan watched as a blue snake skittered around on the screen, swallowing apples. Will died a few times, but if it angered him, he didn’t have any reaction.

He wondered if the boy was mute, but figured he probably wasn’t. “Will” had said something to Mr. Wilson earlier, Stan just wasn’t paying attention. As Mr. Wilson moved to the middle row, Stan found himself mesmerized with Will’s snake game. No wonder he was addicted.

-

“Okay everybody. A few ground rules… you can eat in here, you know, your breakfast, whatever. I don’t care. But if you get it on the floor or on the computer, you clean it up.”

Stan stared up at Mr. Wilson from where he was sitting, wondering how long he’d been staring at “Will’s” computer screen. It seemed like forever. Yet he was still in class. “Second, be nice. Third…” Mr. Wilson moved away from the podium-like thing at the front of the room and reached up on a shelf. “This statue. Whoever participates the most in the class will be given this. I know you guys don’t care, and it’s early in the morning, and you’re tired.” Mr. Wilson smiled and looked at Will (Stanley was pretty sure the boy went by Will), who was now paying attention, and smiled. “I started this a few years ago to add competition. If you have it when we take a test, you can get out of it. As long as it’s not finals.”

He stared at the golden trophy as Mr. Wilson set it on the podium. Stanley remembered a show, years ago…  _ How to Get Away with Murder  _ was the name, he thought, where the teacher in the show used the same method. The trophy was of a figure holding a baseball bat. He was close enough to read the name engraved in the plaque on the side- Bryant H. Wilson. From Mr. Wilson’s high school years, most likely. Stanley smiled gently at the thought.

Tuning out the rest of the rules, Stanley turned and made eye contact with Will, who had been staring at him. Maybe not staring- he couldn’t be sure of that- but they looked at each other at the same time. “Will” gave him a small smile.

Stanley didn’t smile back. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to. He knew that he needed to make friends, but..

_ Anxiety,  _ he told himself.

It sure was. But Stanley managed to muster a “hi,” to which Will responded with “h-hey.”

Did this kid always stutter? Or was he nervous? Maybe caught off-guard? Or maybe he was staring at Stan and stuttering because he liked him, and he was gay… the boy was pretty cute. Stanley wouldn’t be opposed to dating him.

_ What are you fucking thinking? You don’t even know him. Talk first. _

Stanley broke eye contact with Will and nodded at his own thought, because well, he was right. He would get to know Bill first before he did anything, and he had plenty of time for that.


	2. August 15th, 2019

To Stanley’s relief, his first day of high school was relatively uneventful. In his first class, Mr. Wilson let them talk while he did stuff on his computer. The classes after that were pretty quiet, and the only class he had to do work in was his Honors English class, the last one of the day.

Still, he had no friends. The closest he came to “making” a friend was smiling at the kid he sat next to in the morning, whose name he learned wasn’t actually Will. He went by Bill, and unfortunately, he had lots of friends. He wasn’t super popular, but he had friends, and he played sports. Something Stanley couldn’t relate to on any level.

The next day, Bill showed up late with a styrofoam cup of yogurt, filled to the top with graham crackers and chocolate chips. He had his earbuds in, too. Mr. Wilson smiled at him as he took his seat, and Stanley was almost fuming, until he remembered that he was allowed to eat in class too. Bill might’ve already been a favorite, but he wasn’t breaking any rules.

Once the bell rang, Mr. Wilson stood in front of his podium. “The business world is about making yourself known.. so today, you will make a PowerPoint with your name, and a few facts about you. What you like, clubs you’re in, stuff like that. Add pictures and transitions, whatever. Whoever finishes theirs first can present.” The entire class was quiet. Mr. Wilson frowned at this. “You can talk.”

Still, nobody spoke. Mr. Wilson shrugged and sat down at his desk, but Stan had a problem. He didn’t know the login to his account, so he stood up and asked his teacher what he should do.

He felt eyes on the back of his head, and sure enough, Bill was staring at him. Ugh.

But was that such a bad thing?

After giving Wilson his first and last name, Stan glanced at Bill again as Wilson scribbled on a Post-It note. Looking away, he tried to distract himself by thinking of things to put on his PowerPoint. What did he like? Mostly birds. And reading. But that was all, and it wasn’t interesting, and it wouldn’t make Mr. Wilson like him.

He looked back at Wilson and realized that he’d called someone in the time it took for his mind to wander off. “Okay,” Wilson muttered before hanging up. “Sorry, Stan. It might take a day or two for you to get your new username in the school system.” Mr. Wilson stood up. “But you can use my computer, if you want. I have other stuff to do,” he smiled.

Stan found himself smiling back. “Okay, um, thanks.” Mr. Wilson walked to the back of the room, where his other desk (without a computer) was. Stanley sat down and opened Google Slides, once again sneaking a look at Bill who was now directly on his right. Bill wasn’t looking at him now, probably down to work on his PowerPoint or distracting himself again with the snake game he liked to play.

Pushing Bill out of his mind, he got down to work on his Google Slides.

-

Stanley clicked through his slides, frustrated with how boring it was. He didn’t  _ like  _ anything- at least nothing interesting. Nothing that would make people want to talk to him or relate to him. He liked reading books, but who read in this day and age, except him and college students? The books he liked were obscure, prestigious, and wordy, too. He liked Harry Potter, but that was about the most popular thing he could think of, and even that had its flaws. Especially the author. Stanley didn’t like to think about her.

The shows he liked were stupid, too. He watched Big Brother and Survivor with his parents sometimes- only after he was finished with all of his schoolwork and chores- but what fifteen year old was interested in Survivor? He snuck another glance at Bill. Definitely not him. Kids his age were interested in shitshows like  _ Riverdale  _ and  _ 13 Reasons Why.  _ Stan shook his head and added a picture of  _ American Horror Story.  _ Maybe somebody would recognize it. He added  _ How to Get Away with Murder,  _ too, but only to appeal to Mr. Wilson. He didn’t remember much from the show.

The next slide he added was food. That was easy. Stan had a love-hate relationship with food, but watermelon, Hot Cheetos, and pizza could appeal to everyone, right?

Stan swallowed his spit, vaguely aware that he was worrying too much. He couldn’t appeal to everyone. He knew what his mother always told him, when he complained about not having friends-  _ just be yourself.  _ But he was himself. And nobody liked him.

This was too difficult. Stan deleted two slides entirely- the  _ books  _ and  _ animals  _ slide. The books slide was completely empty- any books he added would out him as gay, like  _ Call Me By Your Name  _ and  _ Brokeback Mountain.  _ Both were gay love stories, and both made him cry. People would definitely recognize them.

As for animals, he only cared about birds. His parents never let him have a pet, not even a cat or dog.

He was tempted to stand up and ask Mr. Wilson how long their PowerPoint had to be, but he was scared of the answer. Plus, if he presented and his presentation came up short, he could always plead ignorance and get out of it. But that wasn’t really an excuse…

Stan wanted to see what was on Bill’s PowerPoint. Maybe he could stall and wait until Bill presented tomorrow, see what he liked, and go home and research them. He was out of ideas as to what to add to his PowerPoint. He didn’t play video games, and he didn’t like sports like Bill did, and…

Ugh. He didn’t have siblings or friends to add. Or even pets. Stan was questioning whether he even had a personality when the bell rang, and everyone stood up. He hastily closed out of his Google Slides and stood up, grabbing his backpack and pushing past everyone to get out of the classroom as soon as possible. 


	3. August 16th, 2019

Stanley was still at a loss over what to put on his presentation, and ultimately decided that he would just wait until Bill or some other kid presented. He could steal interests here and there and convince everyone he was normal. That he wasn’t a complete nerd.

He was worried Bill wouldn’t show up to school that day. Mr. Wilson was standing next to Stan’s desk, bent over and writing something down on a Post-It note for him. “Here. Your username, password, and school email. Your email password should be the same as this one,” he spoke, pointing a ridged fingernail at something he’d written down. Stan’s password was now “Derry01.”

“Thanks,” Stan said back, smiling up at him. He wasn’t normally a smiler, but he found that sucking up to teachers meant they cut you some slack and trusted you more. Being called a teacher’s pet sucked, but at least he didn’t have to watch his back constantly.

Suddenly Bill was behind him, and then he was pulling his chair out from his desk and sitting down. He had earbuds in again, and another styrofoam cup of yogurt. Stan wondered if it was actually good enough to eat on a daily basis.

He looked back up at Mr. Wilson, who was smiling. “Sure. It’s my job.” Then he was gone, off to go help another kid with their hand raised. Stanley turned to look at Bill, and suddenly had an idea- he could ask what type of music he was listening to. That would give him a lot of insight, not just on his interests but who Bill was as a person. Stan just hoped he didn’t listen to trap music.

“Hey,” he said softly, poking Bill in the arm. Bill had started logging into his computer, and Stan was thankful to be sitting at his own seat. He could look at Bill’s presentation now if he wanted to, and see what he liked. Maybe things were turning for him. He might have a chance after all.

Bill pulled an earbud out and tilted his head.

“Uh… what are you listening to?” Stan said, gesturing to Bill’s phone.

“Oh.” Bill turned on his phone and let Stanley look at the song that was playing. It was  _ FUCKING YOUNG / PERFECT  _ by  _ Tyler, the Creator. _

This struck a chord with Stan. He didn’t like Tyler, the Creator, but he heard something about him on Twitter. He was gay, right? There were rumors.

“Isn’t he gay?” Stan asked innocently, trying to see what type of reaction Bill would have.

“No.” Bill didn’t sound offended. He said it in a way that made him sound like he was absolutely sure of himself. Unbothered.

Stan chewed on the inside of his cheek. Bill was looking away now, back at the computer screen as he typed in his password. “Yes he is. Wasn’t there something on Twitter about it?”

Bill hit enter and was logged into his computer. “H-He makes j-juh-jokes like that a-ah-all the time.”

_ Homophobic,  _ Stanley thought.  _ Homophobic, and he plays sports, and he has lots of friends that he makes transphobic jokes to and they all cheer him on. He says fag and dyke and it’s because his parents raised him that way. Should’ve known. He looks like it. _

Before Stan can think of a way to respond, Bill spoke up again. “Do you luh-like him?”

“What?” Stanley said, caught off-guard.

“T-Tyler.” He was making eye contact now. “You like his muh-music?”

He noticed how Bill’s stutter became more and more apparent the more he spoke, and how he completely brushed past the questions about Tyler being gay. Maybe he wasn’t homophobic, and he knew more about an artist he actually listened to than Stanley did who saw a post on Twitter two years ago. “No. Sorry.”

“Be-Because he’s gay? Or suh-something e-eh-e-else?” Bill asked, the right side of his lip slightly raised so that it made his eye squint.

“...No. I don’t really like rap.”

Bill nodded, almost looking disappointed.

That was where their conversation ended. Stanley felt like Bill just wasn’t interested in him anymore, maybe because he didn’t like Tyler the Creator, maybe because he made himself look homophobic. Maybe because Bill suspected he was gay and was homophobic himself. Or maybe Bill was sick of him. Maybe Bill was gay, but Stanley just looked too ugly or too Jewish or...

_ Shut up, shut up,  _ he told himself.  _ Overthinking. Make your stupid PowerPoint so Wilson won’t think you’re a slacker. _

He decided that he would start from scratch. Stanley hadn’t done much with his draft on Mr. Wilson’s computer the day before. The only idea he would keep was adding American Horror Story and How to Get Away with Murder on his slide of TV shows he liked, and watermelon and pizza for food.

Stan wanted to lean over and look at Bill’s PowerPoint, but the computer tower was blocking his view and if he leaned over a little too much it would become obvious what he was doing. So basically, he was stuck. Maybe he could look up normal interests and use those?

Realizing that he was tensing his shoulders, he let them relax. This whole PowerPoint and Bill situation was stressing him out.

_ I’ll do it when I get home tonight. I will. I’ll put Harry Potter somewhere on my list and people will think I’m just like them. _


	4. August 19th, 2019

The weekend stretched for months in Stanley’s mind. He was stuck in his house, unpacking from their recent move. Since the three of them were home from work and school for two days, Stanley’s parents thought it would be a great idea to get everything sorted out and organized in one weekend so they “wouldn’t procrastinate.”

He was exhausted, and the thought of going to school after two days of unpacking box after box didn’t make him any more eager to return. Still, he found himself in his seat that Monday, eyelids droopy and arms sore.

A few kids finished their PowerPoints, and even though Mr. Wilson encouraged those who weren’t finished to keep working, Stanley made no moves to log into his computer. Because Bill was standing at the front of the room, the ActivBoard pen held loosely between his thumb and index finger, with the first slide of his presentation up on the board.

In bold, the title card read  _ Bill Denbrough, 1/4/04.  _ Presumably, that was his birthday. Mr. Wilson was still talking about something that Stanley couldn’t pay attention to. Bill was wearing a gray sweater, with a small blue State of Maine college logo in the top left corner. It was slightly oversized. His hair was the same as it was every day. Brown. Bangs parted to the side.

He looked nice.

“...know this presentation isn’t a big grade, but you need to do it anyway. Bill finished first, so he gets the trophy.” Mr. Wilson moved away from the podium and sat down in his rolling office chair. “You can go now.”

_ He already has the fucking trophy.  _ Stan narrowed his eyes at Bill. If Stanley had just put his stupid dumb boring interests on his presentation, he would’ve been done on the first day, and he could’ve had the trophy. But he stalled and started getting insecure about himself.

Look where that got him.

“M-My name is Buh-B-Bill Denbrough, ah-and I was born on J… January fourth, t-two thousand… four.” Bill paused to look at Mr. Wilson, who urged him on with a hand gesture.

Bill hit the ActivBoard with the pen, and a new slide flashed onto the screen. This one said  _ Family  _ at the top, and had a picture of his mom and his dad, with their names underneath each picture. At the very bottom, there was a picture of a golden retriever. “H-His name is Buddy.” Bill’s eyes landed on Stanley, and as the two of them made eye contact, Stanley suddenly stiffened and sat up straight in his seat. All of the drowsiness in his body had left. “My d-d-dad named hi-him, not me,” he said, as if Buddy were the stupidest name in the universe. Bill turned away, glancing at the other kids in the room, and then back at the board.

Stanley got one last look at the slide before it was replaced with another. It seemed like there was something missing on Bill’s slide, or that something was wrong. Still, he had no time to think about it, because the next slide was about sports.

“I p-play baseball, and, uh… football. I’m a puh-p-pih-pitcher in baseball. Coach keeps m-moving me ah-a-around in football, so.. I don’t know what I puh-pl-play right now.”

Mr. Wilson stood up. “What happened to soccer?”

“Got k-kicked off.”

Frowning, he nodded and sat back down. “I’m sorry.”

This interaction didn’t sit right with Stanley, but he tried ignoring it. His crush was presenting. His crush might’ve been a homophobic asshole, but he still wanted to know about him.

“Why’d ya get kicked off, Bill?” a girl said from a few rows behind Stanley. Bill only looked at her and shrugged. He didn’t seem to recognize the girl.

He hit the board again and another slide popped up. Stanley felt… wrong. He felt wrong for watching Bill present, even though there was nothing wrong with it in the first place. Stanley wiggled the mouse around on his computer, waking it up, while Bill went on about the music he liked, still a stuttering mess. He heard the words “Tyler, the Creator” and “Brockhampton” and figured it was for the best. Stanley needed to work on his own presentation anyway.

But the next slide, he couldn’t ignore. Bill had started listing off a bunch of names- not artist names, but real life, people names- and turned to look at the board. The names listed were Beverly, Richie, Mike, Ben, and Eddie. Stan re-read the names over and over again, but soon Bill pulled up another slide and started talking about the food and drinks and restaurants he liked.

Logging into his Google account with the email and password Mr. Wilson gave him last Friday, he wished he could be friends with one of them. Any of them. He knew he had class with two of them- Richie, who was annoying and seemed to get a lot of shit for it- and Mike, who was smart, and one of the only black kids in the school.

Stanley started thinking of a plan. Not that he was going to go through with it. But if he made friends with one of them, he could find out more about Bill.

It was perfect, except the fact that going up to Richie Tozier didn’t seem like a great idea (even he knew about his reputation already, and he was new to school.) And if he went up to this Mike kid with questions about Bill, neither Mike or Bill would ever trust him or talk to him again.

So what now?

After mentioning a local Chinese buffet that Bill liked, he gave the pen to Mr. Wilson and sat down in his seat. A girl with brown hair came up next, and Stanley recognized her voice- it was the girl who asked why Bill got kicked off of the soccer team. Stanley didn’t think much of it. He was thinking of all the things he could add to his presentation.


	5. August 20th, 2019

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the small hiatus. had a lot of stuff going on (might not update for a while after this because i think i'm moving soon)

By Monday night, Stanley had his PowerPoint finished. It was filled with movies and book series that he only half-liked, but he thought it was better than nothing.

Even though he knew they would help, last Monday he mentally tuned everyone’s presentation out except for Bill’s. Bill was the only person he cared about, even if the two of them got off to a rough start. Stanley was still hopeful that Bill wasn’t homophobic, and that they could be friends, if not anything else.

“Mr. Uris? I haven’t seen anything from you yet. Are you working on it?” Mr. Wilson asked, staring down at Stan, concern in his face.

“No. Um, actually, I’m done.” Stanley turned to look at Bill, who was playing a game on his computer- again. Except this time, it wasn’t the snake game. It looked like Pac-Man from where he sat.  
Bill wore an army jacket that day, with a pale blue shirt underneath it. The name tag on the army jacket said _Denbrough._ Stanley guessed Bill’s dad was in the army or something, although his dad’s picture on the presentation looked too young to be in the army. A different family member? A grandpa, aunt, uncle?

“Why don’t you go up and present? I’m only waiting on a few other people. You can go ahead and email the presentation to me.”

Stanley nodded and pulled up his Google account, hitting the “share” button and typing in Mr. Wilson’s email that he already had memorized. As Mr. Wilson walked away to do something else, he thought of things he could say to Bill, but came up with nothing. Stan guessed he could listen to those weird artists he liked, but he wouldn’t get much out of it aside from something to talk about. And how far would that go? _Oh, I listened to Brockhampton last night. They’re okay I guess. Not as shitty as I originally thought._ And then Bill would say something like _T-That’s nice, thanks,_ and then their conversation would end there. It would just seem like he was listening to the music and trying to make conversation to please Bill, which was absolutely true, but… he didn’t want _Bill_ to know that.

Before standing up, Stan took one last look at Bill and wondered if he would pay attention to his presentation. Probably not- he wasn’t an interesting person at all, and Stanley was sure he would rather play Pac-Man for the entire period.

Stan walked to the front of the board and put his hands in his pockets, before deciding that it probably looked dumb and took them back out. But then his hands started sweating, and he didn’t know what to do, so he just wiped them on his pants. Then he realized that Bill was watching him even though Wilson hadn’t pulled up his presentation, which made his anxiety worse.

_ Stop. Chill. Stop it, right now. You look like an idiot. _

So he stood up straight, his hands dangling at his sides, trying not to look at Bill or anyone else as Mr. Wilson sat down at his computer and opened his email and blah blah blah. He could already feel eyes on him, and he didn’t like it. At all.

“Okay. Here you go,” Mr. Wilson said, holding out the ActivBoard pen to him. Wilson must’ve noticed the hesitation, because he frowned. “There’s nothing to worry about, okay? You’ll do great,” he tried re-assuring him, before smiling again.

Stan turned to face the front of the room, and then looked over at the board. “My name is Stanley Uris, and I was born on July 13th, 2005.” He glanced at Bill again, who was watching, but not smiling. Duh… why would he be smiling? Stan was stupid to hope for something like that. There was no reason for him to smile in the first place.

He tapped the board with his pen. The next slide was his family. He listed his mother and father, and that… was pretty much it. He didn’t have any friends, siblings, pets… although the more he thought about it, he could’ve added uncles and aunts and cousins to seem less lonely. “That’s my mom and dad. Um.. Andrea Uris and Donald Uris.” He hesitated, wondering if he should add that his dad was a rabbi. Everyone would know he was Jewish if he said so, but his family didn’t practice the religion very closely, and he didn’t want to eliminate his chances at getting friends, did he?

Stanley was panicking again. He took a deep breath, staring at the board in deep thought. He knew it could’ve been worse. If this was hard for him, he couldn’t imagine how hard it was for Bill, who had a stutter before almost every word. “That’s all.” Stan hit the board again, and another slide flashed onto the screen.

“Books and TV shows…” Stan started, and suddenly felt stupid. Nobody cared about what TV shows he liked. Nobody knew him.

He looked back at Bill, saw he was watching, and kept going. “Harry Potter, How to Get Away with Murder… American Horror Story…” Stan continued, looking around at everyone else in the room. Mr. Wilson was leaning forward in his chair, his hand on his chin, watching intently. Most of the other people in the classroom were on their computers or sneaking their phones underneath their desk. This gave him a little more confidence- it didn’t matter what he said. Only Bill and his teacher would hear him. “Bates Motel, and You. And The Help. Only the book, the movie was bad.”

He could see Bill smiling from the corner of his eye. Stan moved to the last slide. “I like watermelon, pizza, Subway… it’s not that bad… Taco Bell, and uh, Sprite, and that’s it.” Stan set the pen down on the corner of Mr. Wilson’s desk and sat back down at his seat, relieved to have it all over with.

When he looked at Bill to see if he wanted to congratulate him, Bill was already staring back at his computer. Instead of Pac-Man, though, he switched back to the snake game he distracted himself with on the first day of school.

Stan wasn’t sure what he expected. It wasn’t like he told Bill he’d done a good job after Bill presented. So why would Bill do that for him?

Sighing, he put his head down on the desk for the rest of the class period, shielding his eyes with his arms so that nothing could bother him. 


	6. August 26th, 2019

Nothing much happened between Bill and Stanley for the next few days. Stanley’s presentation was a thing of the past, something that he simply had to “get over with,” and now Mr. Wilson had, unfortunately, moved on to actual teaching, as had the rest of his teachers. Bill still held the trophy. Stan, Bill, and the brown-haired girl from the first week of school were the only students who actively participated in class.

Now they were learning about mixed, traditional, market, and command economies. Stanley thought he had the definitions down already, so he only listened sparingly, spending most of the period with his nose in a book. Not that he didn’t like Mr. Wilson- he was on the better end of teachers- but he didn’t expect business class to be so  _ boring.  _ Today, though, Stanley slid his bookmark back in his book and set it down on the table. Mr. Wilson was “reviewing” for a “test.” In the third week of school. Stan knew he was going to pass, but wanted to participate anyway. Maybe if he did it enough, he would get the trophy back and impress Bill.

“Okay. What type of economy is the United States?” Wilson asked, his elbows resting on the edge of the podium, hands folded around a black pen.

Stan and Bill’s arms shot up immediately. The girl that sat behind them- Stanley didn’t know her name yet- raised her hand too, although neither of them could see it. “Stan?” Mr. Wilson said.

“It’s market.”

Mr. Wilson smiled and shook his head. “Nope. Bill?”

“What? How come?” Stanley asked, heat rising to his cheeks. He was embarrassed to get such an easy question wrong, even if he didn’t think he was wrong. “Isn’t a market economy capitalist? And we’re a capitalist country, so..”

“Sorry. You’re still wrong. Let’s have Bill answer this one.”

“It’s m-mixed,” Bill corrected. Stanley knew Bill didn’t mean to be a dick, but he was still angry that Bill managed to get the right answer.

Mr. Wilson nodded. “Mixed economies have government regulations. A market economy is only by supply and demand. Next question… how does a command economy decide what needs to be manufactured?”

Stanley rolled his eyes. He knew it was only his fault that he got it wrong, but he wanted someone to blame. And that person happened to be poor Bill. He raised his hand.

“May?”

“It’s… the government decides,” the girl answered. Neither Bill or Stanley looked back at her. Instead, Stanley put his hand down. There was no point in answering anymore.

“Good, good. What does a traditional economy depend on? Bill?”

Bill hesitated before he answered. “...Trading.”

“And?” Mr. Wilson was smiling at him again. “What else?”

“F-Farming and fishing.”

Stanley picked his book up again and started reading, trying to mask his annoyance with boredom. He just wanted that trophy so his parents wouldn’t condescendingly mock him about the fact that he failed to get it. 


	7. August 29th, 2019

When Stan stepped into class that day, he wasn’t the fourth person there like he usually was. Stanley was only beat every morning by Mr. Wilson, a math teacher that always lingered to ask him questions about what to do about “problem students,” and an Asian boy that sat in the back row listening to music. But today, there were two more people- the brown-haired girl, who Stan remembered was named May, and Bill.

The two of them were standing at the table in the back. May was looking through a heap of papers, and Bill was standing and waiting, his arms dangling loosely by his side. Stanley took a step forward.

“Um… here!” May said, pulling a packet out of the stack and handing it to Bill with a huge grin. “You got 100, huh?”

He realized the stack of papers were the tests they’d taken a few days ago, and his heart sank in his chest. Stan remembered being upset that day, finishing the test in twenty minutes and reading for the rest of class even when Mr. Wilson urged him to take his time and look over his answers to make sure he didn’t miss anything. But he hadn’t done any of that. Bill got a perfect score, and at best, Stanley would end up with an 80. His parents were going to be pissed, and there was no chance of getting the trophy now. Shit.

Approaching the table, he stared down at the pile of papers. May stared at him and started to walk away. “Get your own,” she murmured, before sitting down at her own desk.

The fact that May was just being nice to Bill to get him to like her pissed him off even more. She wasn’t being nice to everyone, to gain credibility or friends- she just thought Bill was cute and thought doing him favors would make him pay attention to her. Stanley didn’t care what anyone else thought- May was an attention-seeking bitch. 

Maybe he was being too harsh. But really, he hated her. It probably had something to do with the fact that he thought Bill was cute and wanted him to himself, but who could blame him?

He found his test and pulled it out from the bottom of the stack, clenching his eyes shut before looking at the grade- 73.

Fuck.

He turned back around and walked to his desk. He would have to ask Wilson if he could stay after and retake his test, or his parents would ground him for the weekend and make him stay in to do chores. Not to mention, they’d be “disappointed” in him, too.

-

Mr. Wilson agreed, so after school Stanley left his science class and went to Wilson’s classroom.

“Oh, hi Mr. Uris. I hope you don’t mind, some people are in here. I’ll tell them to quiet down,” he said when he saw Stanley approaching down the hallway. Stan nodded, not really caring- he would only have to redo a couple questions and he would be, hopefully, finished. He got the written questions correct, so there wasn’t much he had to do.

Stanley sat down at the table in the very back with a few chairs around it. He looked up, and of all people, saw Bill and a few kids he didn’t recognize at the other end of the classroom. One of them was Richie Tozier, from his English class, and another was Mike Hanlon, but he didn’t recognize the rest. There was one girl who had short, red hair. She noticed Stanley staring at her and smiled, but didn’t say anything else.

So these were Bill’s friends?

Mr. Wilson closed the door and went back to the front of the room, leaving Stanley on his side all alone. Stan dug in his pocket and pulled out a pencil, flipping to the second page of his test. Every question on the first page he miraculously got right.

“Who’s that?” Richie spoke up, gesturing to Stanley.

Mr. Wilson sat down. “He’s re-taking a test. Don’t bother him.”

Stanley’s cheeks heated up, but he glared down even harder at his test, refusing to make eye contact in case someone saw his face. He felt embarrassed that he got a low grade- not that most people considered a 70 “low,” but he scored lower than Bill, and that was embarrassing enough. Was he just… not smart? Was Bill better than him? Was Mr. Wilson already picking favorites? Wilson wouldn’t do that- he was way too nice, not only to Stan but to everyone. Bill and Mr. Wilson already knew each other, but that didn’t mean he would go as far to fail other kids so Bill could have the top grade. 

“Can I bother him when he’s finished? He’s cute,” Richie snickered. Stanley felt someone watching him, but he wasn’t sure if it was only Richie or everyone in the room, and he didn’t want to find out, so he kept his head down and read over the questions. He mentally scolded himself for getting the simplest of questions wrong, and quickly erased his incorrect answers and brushed the eraser shavings to the side.

“...Sure, Richie,” Mr. Wilson said.

Stanley didn’t want to hang around and see how Richie was going to “bother him” later, either, so he finished up his questions, double-checked them like Mr. Wilson originally recommended, and stood up. He set his packet down on Mr. Wilson’s desk and turned around before he could congratulate him or comment on how he finished too fast and how he shouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

“Hey. What’s your name?” It was Richie. Stanley turned to look at him, and saw that everyone else was watching him too, minus the girl. She was on the other side of the room, sweeping the floor.

“Stan.” He gripped his backpack and turned away again, trying to get out of the room before Richie could say anything else to stop him.

Richie followed anyway, stopping him by tugging his forearm. “You single?... You look new. Where are you from?”

“Beep beep,” one of them said. It was a short fat kid. Stan wasn’t sure what that was code for. “He’s not gay.”

Folding his arms, Richie turned to face the kid. “I think he can speak for himself. Come on… Staaan,” Richie cooed with a huge grin on his face.

Shaking his head, Stan pulled his backpack higher up on his back and left the classroom, making sure to slam the door behind him. As he ran down the hallway to his bus stop, he didn’t look back.


	8. September 4th, 2019

Stanley made no new friends, but the weeks flew by anyway. Life didn’t care about him. Life didn’t care about the fact that he was lonely, so lonely that his only comfort was his parents and estranged Internet friends that didn’t really care about him anymore but still talked to him because he was pitiful. Bill never paid him any attention, and anyone at school he tried to talk to gave him the cold shoulder. They rejected him, and they didn’t even know he was Jewish.

He was glad he decided not to share his religion during his presentation. If people knew he practiced Judaism, he imagined his treatment would be much worse.

So, he was alone, and angry, and had virtually nobody to vent these frustrations to. Was this his fault? Stan wasn’t sure- maybe if he’d been more  _ sociable  _ during his first week of school, or pretended to like Tyler, the Creator so Bill would talk to him- things could’ve been different. But he couldn’t go back in time and fix any of that. He was stuck.

“What is the least common form of business?”

They were reviewing for a test again. Yes. Another one. A lot of time had passed since their last test, and Stanley was determined to do better this time, so he wouldn’t have to stay after and get harassed by Bill’s stupid friends. Also embarrassed at the fact he did bad on another test, but.. Stan didn’t like thinking about that. 

“Bill?” Mr. Wilson said.

“A c-cuh-corporation.” Bill’s stutter bothered Stan more and more as the days passed. Couldn’t this guy just get his fucking words out? Did he really need to take ten minutes to say a single sentence?

Wilson shook his head. “No. Anyone else want to answer?”

“Looks like you don’t know everything,” Stanley sneered from where he sat, which happened to still be right next to Bill.

Bill heard it, and turned around to face him. “Wh-What? What’s y-your pruh-problem?”

“Boys,” Mr. Wilson spoke from his podium. Stanley ignored him.

“You act like you know everything. But you don’t.” He tried to act like it didn’t bother him, as if he were completely indifferent so he could piss Bill off even worse, but it didn’t seem to be working.

“Yeah. Well, at least I d-duh-don’t have to st-stay after every Thursday to retake my t-tuh-teh-test that I f-fuh-fai-”

“Bill,” the teacher warned again, but it was too late. Stanley already had his hands on Bill, grabbing him by the throat, his fist colliding with Bill’s face. “Fuck you! Fuck you,” he repeated under his breath, sending Bill’s chair toppling over.

The two of them were on the floor now. Blood dripped from Bill’s nose, and neither of them spoke or moved. The realization of what he did suddenly hit Stanley like a truck. He got in a  _ fight,  _ a stupid, petty  _ fight,  _ and now it was going to be on his record and he would never get accepted into a good college.

But Bill’s hands were on him now. He clenched his eyes shut. All he could see was white- had he lost a tooth? Broken his nose? Stanley took a chance and opened his eyes, only to see Bill’s angry face hovering over him. He felt a hard kick in the gut, and then heard someone yelling. Mr. Wilson? Himself? Bill?

“That’s enough! Get off of him!”

-

It took a while, but Mr. Wilson eventually had him and everyone else seated at their desks. The room was silent, and blood was consistently dripping from Bill’s nose. He attempted to plug it up with a tissue, but it kept going. Stanley was proud of himself for at least getting one good punch in, even if it didn’t break his stupid nose.

“If you took pictures or videos of the fight, I want them deleted. Right now. Or I will find out, and you will be suspended.” Stanley knew Mr. Wilson was talking to everyone else in the class, not him, but he couldn’t help being afraid of the punishment for fighting in class. Not only the school’s punishment, but the fact it was going on his school record- and also his parents.

A few people pulled out their phones and presumably “deleted” any videos they took. “Second, don’t talk about the fight. Not even to your friends. I don’t appreciate spreading rumors.”

One student protested this, but Stan stopped listening. He was too busy wallowing in his own misery. Why did he snap on Bill like that? Now everyone was going to hate him, and worse than they already did.

“Last thing, I want to see Mr. Denbrough and Mr. Uris after class.”

“C-Can I g-guh-go to the n-”

“Not unless you want to get in trouble, Bill. I don’t think your parents will like to hear about this.”

Bill shut his mouth.

-

“Listen, boys. As long as you don’t tell anyone, you’re not going to get in trouble.” The classroom was now empty. Bill and Stan stood at the desk in front, watching Mr. Wilson in shock.

“But other p-puh-people are going to tell each other. Then you’ll g-get in truh-trouble for not rep-puh-p-porting it.”

Mr. Wilson shrugged. “I’ll just say they’re making it bigger than it actually was for dramatic effect. Look, your nose is almost done bleeding. As soon as it’s finished, you can go to your next class. Stanley doesn’t look too beat up, I think he’s good to go.”

Stan definitely didn’t  _ feel  _ “good to go,” but he was glad that Mr. Wilson was at least attempting to keep their fight a secret. Maybe his parents wouldn’t find out after all. It was a slim chance, but a slim chance was better than nothing. “Thank you, sir,” he said, sneaking a glance at Bill.

“It’s okay. Really. I think you boys are two of the smartest in this school, there’s no need to be jealous of each other.”

Stanley chewed the inside of his cheek, turning silent. Bill didn’t say anything either. Mr. Wilson sighed. “I’m not asking you to be friends. Just don’t fight.”

“Okay,” Bill agreed, making eye contact with Stanley and nodding.

Stan nodded back.

“Get to class, Stan. Here. I’ll write you a note.”


	9. September 6th, 2019

Stan ended up passing the last test, despite getting in a fight the day before, and was glad to find out that neither his parents nor any other teacher or principal had found out about the fight. Mr. Wilson had apparently worked some magic to make sure neither of them got in trouble, and Stan was thankful for that. He wouldn’t have to spend his weekend scrubbing the kitchen floor while his parents went out for another stupid date night.

He didn’t stop hating Bill, though, and Bill didn’t stop hating him either. The two of them always whispered snarky, passive-aggressive comments to each other. Whenever Mr. Wilson asked for volunteers for something, the two of them were always the first to raise their hands. So Mr. Wilson would say,  _ oh, two volunteers! How nice!  _ and would put them both on the task. Sometimes they would be asked to stay after school to do something, sometimes they had to create “advertisements” for new clubs in the high school or sports events, and this time, the two of them had to go out to Mr. Wilson’s car to get some basketball posters to hang up in the hallway.

Originally, Stanley intended on keeping his mouth shut that day and trying to avoid Bill, but they were alone. The silence was choking him, and he had to say something.

Stan saw that Bill still had his earbuds in. Watching Mr. Wilson’s keys dangle from Bill’s middle finger, he spoke up. “Listening to Tyler, the Creator still?” Stan didn’t mean for it to be rude, but his condescending tone didn’t help much with his intention.

“N-Not him.” Bill took an earbud out. “But I luh-l-learned he is gay.”

“Told you,” he muttered, looking away from the keyring. Stanley suddenly didn’t want to have this conversation anymore.

Bill shook his head. “At l-luh-least I’m not a h-homophobic dick like you. You’re p-pruh-probably religious, right? Gay p-people only eh-e-exist because of overp-puh-population. It’s natural, it’s not ag-against the Bible.”

Too shocked to speak, Stanley kept walking, staring at the cool, smooth tile floor underneath him. So Bill wasn’t homophobic after all- and now  _ Bill  _ was the one thinking that he was a bigoted asshole.

He had to say something, or else he would seal his fate as the prejudiced homophobic kid in Bill’s mind forever. “So does that mean you’re gay?” Stan spoke. Wrong response- he knew it the second it came out of his mouth. But it was the only thing he could say, and it was the only real question he wanted an answer to.

“I h-ha-have a guh-girlfriend. Just b-because I duh-d-don’t hate gay people doesn’t mean I’m f-fuh-fucking g-gay,” Bill answered. “I b-bet you have d-duh-deep childhood trauma.”

_ I bet you have deep childhood trauma?  _ What the fuck was that supposed to mean? No, Stanley didn’t have deep childhood trauma- but he wasn’t homophobic, either.

Stanley pushed open one side of the double doors leading to the parking lot, knowing he would spend the rest of class hanging up basketball posters in the hallway with fucking Stuttering Bill who now thought he was a homophobic piece of shit (and who now had a girlfriend). He regretted his choice of volunteering to get basketball posters from Wilson’s car. But if he didn’t raise his hand, it would look like he didn’t care about participating in class, and would that get him any closer to the trophy? No. So technically, that was his only choice. Spending time doing chores with Bill.

At least he knew the truth about him.


	10. September 6th, 2019 - Evening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for all of the short updates. the story is picking up now though ;)

“Stanley?” his mother called from the living room. “Can you come down here?”

Stan descended the stairs to the living room, pausing cautiously at the last step. “Uh… what is it?” For a moment he was worried that she got a call from the school explaining that he got in a fight, but he saw that she was going through some papers in his backpack. Every day when he came home, she took his backpack and went through the newsletters and papers she had to sign, and he took everything else and finished his homework upstairs. He focused on her face, dimly illuminated from a single lamp in the corner of the living room. What paper was she worried about?

“Do I need to sign this, honey?” she asked as Stan approached and sat down next to her. It was a paper he got in Business class about some stupid lock-in in the school gym- all of the clubs and electives were giving out papers for it. 

He shook his head. “I’m not going.”

“Well, why not?” Andrea questioned, setting a thin stack of papers down on the coffee table. “You’ve been doing well at school, and I never see you out with any friends. If you want to go, I think you should.”

“I don’t have any friends,” he muttered. “Plus, you have to send in money. I don’t want to do it.”

She frowned. “It’s only ten bucks so they can feed you. And you haven’t made any friends at all this year?”

“No.”

“Well, I think you should go anyway.” Andrea clicked her pen and signed the paper. “You only go to high school once, and your grades are up. Better than last year, even.” She dug in her purse and pulled out ten dollars. “Give this to one of your teachers.”

Stan took the paper in his hands. “It’s gonna be boring, Mom. There’s no point.”

“Well… if you make a new friend in this coming week, it might not be so boring. Come on, hun. Worst case scenario, you stay on your phone the whole time and have to sleep on a hard floor. But think how fun it could be if you had a friend group!”

He found it odd that his mom was actually  _ urging  _ him to go to an after school event. Usually she turned down these things, and he learned to stop asking about them, but now she… wanted him to go?

“Okay.” He knew exactly how the lock-in was going to turn out- Stanley was going to bring three books and sneak off in the locker room or some unused hallway and try to finish them- with a sleeping bag underneath him. It was no different than finishing his test early in school and reading a book while he waited for everyone else to finish too. “Fine, I’ll go.” Stan knew if he didn’t agree, his mom would keep nagging him about going and making friends and having fun. So he agreed.

Smiling, she set her pen down. “That’s good to hear. When your father gets home, can you help him with dinner? I’ve got to go visit Ms. Williams, her daughter died yesterday. Did you hear about the car crash?”

Stan didn’t hear about the car crash, and honestly, he didn’t care. “Tell her I’m sorry. I’m gonna go finish my homework- love you Mom,” he said quickly, wanting to get out of the living room as soon as possible.

“You too, dear. I’ll tell her.”


	11. September 7th, 2019 - Part I

Gripping the straps of his backpack, Stanley stood in the center of the gym, feeling extremely overprepared yet underprepared at the same time. Physically, he was prepared- he had everything he needed, like his toothbrush and toothpaste, his sleeping bag and an extra blanket if he got cold, and enough books to last him two days. Mentally, he was underprepared- how was he supposed to sneak out of the gym? He could always leave to use the bathroom, but he was sure a teacher would stop him and ask why he was bringing his entire backpack. If he did manage to get out of the gym with his backpack without raising any eyebrows, where was he supposed to go? The main hallway was closed off by a huge metal gate that remained folded on the brick wall when school was in session. Stan was actually kind of upset that the school knew someone was ought to plan on sneaking off. It fucked him over. If he stayed in the gym, he would have to either sleep or lay in silence for seven hours.

Another idea ran through his head- he could always try to leave in the middle of the night with his backpack. If someone asked, he would say he needed to pee. Hopefully it would be so dark that nobody would notice if he brought everything with him.

“Hey Stanley,” Mr. Wilson greeted him. Stanley jumped, instinctively reaching in his back pocket and feeling for the ten dollar bill his mother gave him, before realizing it was gone. A teacher had asked for it in the lobby near the front doors. “Did I scare ya? Sorry. I didn’t expect you to come, you didn’t turn in a paper or anything…”

His backpack suddenly felt heavy on his shoulders. Stan wanted to sit down somewhere nice and quiet, where people weren’t talking and teenage girls weren’t sitting in the corner on their phones, screeching unnecessarily loudly at something. “I gave it to the office.”

“Oh, okay.” Wilson smiled. “Shoulda known. Well, my kids are over there. Clubs have to sit together, I know, stupid rule, but they’re going to make everyone stand up at 7 and make sure they’re in the right place. After that, though, they’ll stop paying attention. You can move to be with your friends later.”

_ Your friends.  _ Mr. Wilson knew Stan didn’t have any friends in his class, and it was generous of him to suggest he had friends in other classes. At least Mr. Wilson was giving him the benefit of the doubt. Leaving to settle down somewhere in the hallway sounded more and more appealing by the second, though- maybe he could try the doors to the locker rooms, or try to break into the cafeteria somehow. Usually he went by the rules, but it wasn’t like he was vandalizing the school or anything. He just wanted to be alone for one stupid night.

That’s when he saw Bill’s friends behind Mr. Wilson, in the business “section” of the gym. Bill wasn’t there with them, but they were huddled together in a circle, and Stan knew Bill was going to be sandwiched in that circle with them sometime soon. He needed to get out of the gym, and fast.

“Well, thanks, um, for telling me,” he told his teacher. Stan was already making another plan in his head. He could get out of the gym with his backpack by telling a teacher he was  _ brushing his teeth  _ and  _ changing.  _ He was technically already in his pyjamas, which was a pair of sweatpants and a shirt with the logo from his old school on it, but it’s not like the teachers would know that. Plenty of kids wore normal sweatpants to school. And nobody would care if he went missing- he had no friends, Bill wouldn’t rat on him (because Bill didn’t care about him), and Mr. Wilson would be distracted giving out pizza at 7:30. It was perfect. He could really get away later that night.

“Stanley!” someone shouted. Stan turned around, and saw that it was Richie. Shit. Maybe someone would notice if he was gone after all.

Waving, Stanley headed to the gym doors to go sit in the bathroom stall for an undecided period of time. His plans were changed immediately after Richie recognized him. If Richie had the nerve to follow him to the bathroom and knock on the stall door, he would plead constipation and hopefully Richie would fuck off. That was as far as his plan went.

Richie got up and grabbed him by the arm. “Come here. We wanna talk to you,” he grinned, looking Stanley in the eye. “Come here.”

He had no choice. Stanley wanted to know what it was all about, and Richie was practically  _ dragging  _ him to the circle- why would he leave now? Stan hoped it was something about Bill, even if he didn’t want to see him in the gym, he wanted to hear things about him. Bill was still pretty mysterious.

As he sat down in the circle, the fat kid waved at him. Stan felt a little bad for thinking of him as the fat kid, but he didn’t know his name, and honestly, what else was he supposed to think of him as? The white kid? There were three other white kids in the circle. “Hey,” another kid said. Stan classified him as  _ the freckle kid.  _ So far, there was the fat kid, the freckle kid, Richie Tozier, the ginger girl, and Mike Hanlon. What could they possibly want from him?

“So, why do you hate Bill?” the girl asked. Stanley couldn’t really answer- he was too busy remembering the time he went out to Mr. Wilson’s car to get the basketball posters. Bill had called him homophobic, and said he wasn’t gay, because he had a girlfriend. Was this the girlfriend in question?

Stan shrugged. “I have to pee.” He stood up and tried to leave, but Richie dragged him back down. “No, talk to us. Come on. He says you hate him, we wanna know why,” Richie urged.

“...I mean, he hates me. That’s why I hate him.”

The girl laughed. “He doesn’t hate you. Hey, are you homophobic?”

He tried standing up again. Richie stood up with him. “What are you scared of? Come on… answer.”

“I’m not! He just thinks I am because I mentioned that fucking Tyler, the Creator was gay! Can you just leave me alone?” Stan snapped, wanting to get out of the gym before Bill came. The ginger insisted that Bill didn’t hate him, but for some reason, he didn’t believe her. And he wanted to leave the more they spoke to him. They were a  _ unit.  _ Solidified. He wasn’t one of them, and he felt completely out of the loop for some reason.

Richie frowned. “Sorry. You can go. Go pee or whatever.”

For a moment, Stanley didn’t believe that Richie was letting him go- how was it possible he was being let off so easy? But he didn’t want to stand around and get questioned, and he definitely didn’t want to be spotted with Bill’s friends whenever Bill arrived. He took the opportunity to leave and ran with it.

-

Stanley turned on his phone. The glaring white numbers read  _ 9:03 PM,  _ and the fact that he just sat in a sticky bathroom stall for almost three hours was hitting him hard. His phone was about to die, and he knew he needed to find a nice, secluded hallway with a power outlet sooner than later. Thankfully the bathroom stalls hadn’t been in high demand for the past few hours. Most of the boys had changed near the sinks, and generally less and less people came in and out of the bathroom as time went by. Well, he wasn’t entirely sure of that- but he knew he heard less toilets flushing and less sinks turning on and off.

Stanley unlocked the stall door and shoved his phone in his pocket, picking up his backpack from the small bed of toilet paper he let it sit on. He also made a small pile of toilet paper for himself to sit on at the other side of the stall. There was no way he was sitting on the actual toilet, which didn’t even have a top lid, or the disgusting tile floor. He was sure he would get a disease, or his pants would be wet and/or sticky for the rest of the night.

He made the fatal mistake of deciding to wash his hands before he left. Stanley turned the right knob, dipping his hands underneath the cool (probably bacteria-filled) public school water, spotting a soap dispenser around his eye level and pushing on it.

Then his plan fell through. Mr. Wilson came into the bathroom, spotting Stanley and giving him a short, cheerful greeting before using a urinal on the far side of the room.

Basically, he was fucked. He could leave right now, but if he didn’t get far enough, his teacher could still see him. Maybe he could hide behind a corner or something, but…

“I was wondering where you were for the last few hours,” Mr. Wilson said, pushing on the soap dispenser and washing his hands. “There’s some leftover pizza, if you want. You’re hungry, huh? I could sneak you some.”

....At least he tried to get away. He was just… unlucky. That was it. “I’m fine. No thanks.”

“Well, if you get hungry just tell me. That Richie boy was asking where you were.”

Stan shut off the faucet and had the urge to bury his head in his hands and groan. Why the fuck would Richie Tozier ask where he was? Why did Richie care?

He knew at this point that Bill Denbrough was in the gym somewhere, maybe the same spot his friends were in earlier, talking to them about how weird Stan was or how much Stan hated him or blah blah blah. Stanley didn’t know if the lights were still on in the gym. It was only 9 PM, the average universal bedtime was 10, right? 

It occurred to him that a teacher was right there, literally standing right next to him. “Are the lights off in there yet?”

“No. They started playing a movie on the projector- so… I guess they’re technically off.” Mr. Wilson stopped his faucet and went to dry his hands on the opposite wall. “I think you should talk to Richie. Him and his little friend group would make good friends.”

_ Good friends.  _ As if that’s what Richie wanted from him- friendship. Every time he wasn’t nagging him about Bill, he was flirting with him and asking if he was gay or single. There was no way Stan wanted to be friends with him. “I’m actually good,” Stan muttered, opting to dry his hands on his sweatpants so he wouldn’t have to walk back to the gym with Mr. Wilson. He was a nice person, but there was just too much going on right now for Stanley to appreciate that kind of thing.

Wilson caught up to him though, and Stan found himself following the rules, laying down near all of the other business kids. He caught a glance of Bill and his friends, packed closely together near the bleachers. He wasn’t too far away from them.

“Stan,” someone hissed. Fucking Richie- again. Stan rolled onto his back and craned his neck to see Richie staring at him. “Get over here.”

Stan just couldn’t catch a break, could he? All he wanted in that moment was to lay down and watch a shitty movie that he didn’t even know the name of without being bothered. But no- he couldn’t even have that.

“What?” he whisper-yelled back, not even caring if he got yelled at for talking during a movie.

Richie stood up and yanked Stanley off of the floor at full force- which was surprisingly strong for someone as skinny as Richie. He picked Stanley’s backpack off of the floor too, bringing it over to where he was laying before Stanley came through the gym. Unzipping his backpack, Richie sat down in his sleeping bag and started pulling things out of it, finally finding Stanley’s sleeping bag and yanking it out.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Stan asked, standing above Richie and watching as the boy spread out his sleeping bag in the spot next to him. 

The girl waved at him. Bill was staring at him from the other side of the circle. A death stare. Stan started to pick his sleeping bag back up, but Richie fought with him until Stanley finally laid down. It was uncomfortable laying down with five strangers and one kid who hated his guts, but there was absolutely no fighting Richie Tozier. He knew Richie would win in the end.

Stan tried hard to focus on the movie, but he felt a pair of burning eyes on him at all times. What was Bill’s problem?


	12. September 7th & 8th, 2019 - Part II

Stanley woke up to the faint sound of someone sniffling. A naturally light sleeper, even the softest footsteps or the gentlest poke could wake him up. 

He turned his head on his pillow, squeezing his eyes shut and wishing whoever was having a fucking mental breakdown in the middle of the night would put a sock in it. After falling asleep sometime during the movie, he could recall waking up about a million times, having to listen to teenage girls giggle and tickle each other’s faces when they fell asleep or Richie giggling because he’d pulled Mike’s shirt up in the middle of the night and drew something on him with a permanent marker. Pushing his blanket aside and starting to sit up, he wished he brought his sleeping pills, but he knew a teacher would take them away from him if he didn’t turn them in to the nurse.

At first, he saw nothing. The gym was pitch black. Wildly, Stanley turned his head, focusing in on a small group of boys in the corner of the room, sitting up against the bleachers, the dim blue light of the screen on their phones hitting their faces in unflattering angles. Stanley’s eyes started to adjust.

The sniffling came to an abrupt stop, before starting again, this time softer and slightly muffled.

He grabbed his own phone and turned it on, flashing it on Richie’s face first, trying to figure out which one of Bill’s stupid friends decided to wake him up. Richie was fast asleep. He moved on to the ginger girl, whose name he still didn’t know, when he heard someone speak to him.

“M-Mike?” It was Bill. Bill’s voice, at least, he couldn’t be sure who was making the sniffling sounds, but they were still going, in the same general direction of Bill’s voice. 

Stanley froze in place, turning his phone off and putting it back in his pocket so he wouldn’t lose it on the floor somewhere. “No,” he whispered back.

“Who? Um… Eh-Eds?” Bill asked, his voice rich with desperation. Who the fuck was Eds?

“This is Stanley.”

Silence.

“Are you crying?” Stan asked, wanting to go back to sleep, but curious as to why Bill was up at this hour. 

“No. I’m s-suh-sick.” Stanley knew a lie when he heard one, and it wasn’t a very clever or well-disguised lie, either. On one hand, he wanted to tell Bill to stop his crying because he was in a gym filled with people who were asleep (or at least  _ trying  _ to get to sleep), but on the other hand… he could stay up with Bill and talk to him. Sitting in the middle of the gym and whispering all night wasn’t exactly ideal, but maybe him and Bill could carry out that plan he had initially before his mother dropped him off.

And he wanted Bill to stop hating him.

“You’re lying,” he said, trying not to sound too accusatory. Now that the general fatigue was fading away, he found himself more sympathetic towards Bill- he had to be going through some deep shit in order to cry shamelessly during a school lock-in. “Hey. Do you want to sneak out?” Stan was paranoid that someone was listening to them, but there really was no other way to communicate. 

Surprisingly enough, Bill answered with no hesitation. “Yes.”

He found himself smiling as he got to his feet. Why was he so excited to leave the gym with Bill? Maybe it meant the two of them would form a bond or some sort of connection, or maybe he was just smiling because Bill was fucking cute and he was finally getting some alone time with him where they could talk without the impending sense of being judged for every slight movement or gesture he made. He also had a chance at redemption- Stan could prove to Bill that he wasn’t a stuck-up homophobic overly religious goodie two shoes. 

Stanley turned his phone on again, directing the light at the gym floor so he could avoid the many stray arms and legs of sleeping adolescent teenagers. The last thing he wanted was to step on someone’s hand, have them scream out in pain, and get caught by a teacher. Then again… pretending to go to the bathroom would still work if that were to happen, but he wanted to avoid attention from the teachers.

Pressing his hands against the thick, metal handle of the double doors, he turned to see if Bill was still with him. He was. Stanley pushed open the door as slowly and carefully as he could, avoiding making the door squeak.

Without knowing exactly where the teachers were, he felt a moment of pure terror, wondering if all of them were just sitting in an adjacent hallway somewhere and talking, but he couldn’t see  _ anything.  _ It was exciting, in a way- being in a dark high school hallway at (maybe?) two AM with a cute boy he liked, just on the verge of getting caught- gave him a sense of adrenaline he wished could last forever. But reality settled in when Bill poked him on the shoulder. “Turn on t-the fluh-flah-flash on your phone,” he whispered. 

Stanley did just that. The hallways adjacent to him were empty. His eyes trailed on the glistening tile floor as the flashlight on his phone hit it, illuminating the pride colors that the school was practically covered in. White and some kind of pastel teal green. The place looked like his grandma’s bathroom.

They walked down the declining ramp and passed up the cafeteria. “Bill,” he said, still whispering. It was better to be safe than sorry. “The main hallway is blocked off. Do you have any idea where we should go? There’s- there’s a hallway on the right side of the cafeteria, but it’s not very long. Maybe we can g-”

“I know,” Bill interrupted him. Stanley frowned. “There are d-duh-double doors leading outside d-down that huh-ha-hallway. A teacher or parent m-might come in and bust us. I know a way to the main hallway.”

“...Oh.” He only felt slightly stupid for overexplaining himself to Bill. “How?”

Bill directed Stanley’s flashlight on his phone towards himself, then pointed to the hallway that Stanley mentioned. “There’s a suh-side door to the cafeteria. It’s never locked. I-Ih-If we go in the cafeteria, there’s a d-door leading to the m-main h-hu-ha-hallway.”

Stan now felt  _ extremely  _ stupid for not remembering that. Of course there was a door leading to the main hallway, he sat right in front of it every lunch period in the cafeteria. “S-Suh-Second door could… be, um, locked. B-But we can truh-try. And ih-if it doesn’t work, we can just stay in the cafeteria, or find suh-somewhere else. Another way.”

Nodding, he backtracked his steps and started walking down the hallway Bill mentioned, stopping when the two of them got to the door. Bill pushed it open. Stanley was still having trouble processing exactly what they were doing, feeling like he was pretty much on autopilot.

They made their way across the cafeteria. Stanley stared at the folded up circular tables that sat next to each other in rows. Time wasn’t real anymore. He couldn’t tell if it was 11 PM or 3 AM- but did that really matter?

Bill tried the door, and luckily for them, it was unlocked. He turned and gave Stanley a celebratory smile before pushing it open and holding it in place for Stan to pass through. He felt a twinge in his chest when Bill smiled at him- was that the first time? No, it couldn’t be. Bill had smiled at him in class before, he was sure of it. But this was probably the only time Bill  _ meant  _ the smile.

He stepped into the hallway and immediately looked both ways. After making sure they were in the clear, Stan continued on, unaware of how wildly he was smiling in that moment. 

They passed through a couple hallways before Bill broke their prolonged silence. “Hide and seek would b-be so fuh-f-fucking fun in here.”

Stan grinned wider. “We can! Do you want to?” The enthusiasm and excitement in his voice was extremely out of character for him, but for once in his life, he was  _ thrilled.  _

Bill nodded quickly. “I have m-my phone on m-me, do you whuh-want to hide first?”

After both of them agreed to share each others numbers so they wouldn’t have to count out loud and put themselves at a higher risk of getting caught, Stanley lingered for a brief moment, watching as Bill turned around and typed something on his phone, now facing the large collapsible metal gate that blocked them from the rest of the student body. 

He took off his shoes and ran.

Once Stanley was far away enough that he was sure Bill wouldn’t see or hear him, he dug his phone out of his pocket. In the time it took him to run, Bill had counted to 20. The two of them had agreed on 45 seconds or more if the other needed time.

**_Bill: 21_ **

**_Bill: 22_ **

**_Bill: 23_ **

He realized that he needed to get going. Stanley turned on his flash again and stood in place, twirling around to scan every possible hallway. Where was there to hide? There were corners he could hide behind and jump out of to scare Bill, sure, but if he wasn’t turning said corner, Bill would spot him and that wouldn’t be any fun.

Passing up a few rows of trophy cases, he ran down the hallway to his left, before realizing that he could hide in the bathrooms. Male  _ or  _ female. Going into a bathroom with nothing but socks on wasn’t exactly ideal, and Stanley knew he would come out with yellow-tinted stains on the bottom of them, but he was already so far in. He ran away from the gym and broke into two “restricted” areas- would hiding in a nasty bathroom be so bad at this point?

Stanley decided on the female bathroom. Hopefully it would be much cleaner in there, because most women don’t have dicks and decide to piss all over the floor with their bad aim. 

He hid himself behind a stall door, and was glad to find that, yes, female bathrooms were much cleaner and less sticky, although he wasn’t sure if the janitor had made his rounds yet. Stan pulled his phone back out of his pocket.

**_Bill: 39_ **

**_Bill: 40_ **

**_Bill: 41!!!!_ **

**_Bill: 42_ **

-

After what felt like a thousand rounds of hide and seek, Stanley had been declared the hide and seek master when Bill had to give up and make Stanley expose his spot several times.

The two of them sat down in a seemingly random hallway downstairs in the “career and tech” center, or at least that’s what the rest of the school called it- Bill and Stan knew it was just where the computer labs and welding classrooms were. Bill was panting from running out of a recent hiding spot, and Stanley was holding his hand to his cheek after running after Bill, tackling him, and having his face brutally slammed down onto the hard tile floor. They were exhausted after their elongated game of hide and seek, especially considering the fact they were both functioning on (at maximum) three hours of sleep each.

Bill’s panting and heaving came to a stop, and Stanley found himself wondering why Bill was crying in the gym in the first place.

“Hey.”

He had his flash turned on, phone face-down between the two of them, the white light casting their two shadows on every surrounding wall and the ceiling. It illuminated the bottom of Bill’s face. “H-Hmm?”

“I know you were crying when you were in there. You woke me up.”

Nodding, Bill turned away from Stanley, breaking eye contact. He stared down the adjoining, expansive hallway in front of them. “Sorry thuh-that I did. But do y-you reh-re-regret being woken up? Really?” he teased, starting to smile. He made eye contact again.

“...No. I don’t regret being woken up. But do you want to, um, talk about it? I’m good at keeping secrets.” That was mostly the truth. Stanley only had trouble keeping secrets when he was faced with a moral dilemma, but something told him this was different.

Internally, he was hoping Bill was going through a breakup with his girlfriend, but he knew that was kind of mean-spirited. Still- it was better than anything else he could think of that might be bothering Bill.

“I d-duh-don’t want to talk about it.”

Stanley understood, but still felt immensely disappointed at the fact Bill didn’t trust him yet. Even if the entire night had been filled with running, hiding, tackling each other, and not much deep conversation… he did trust Bill, in a way. Bill made him happy. “That’s okay,” Stan whispered.

He wasn’t sure how long they had been sitting in place when he heard a noise down the hallway to their right.  _ Is it too late to turn my flash off?  _ Stanley thought fleetingly, grabbing his phone and covering the hole near his camera to conceal the light as he swiped up on his phone and hit the little flashlight button.

Stanley stood up, unable to see anything in the dark. 

“What? What are you d-duh-doin-” Bill asked, before a door slammed shut down the same hallway. Stan heard the jingle of a keyring, and from the corner of his eye, noticed a beam of light. He knew immediately that it was a janitor.

Bill was the one to grab Stanley’s hand, jerking it violently, communicating to Stan that he needed to  _ run.  _

But quietly, if they didn’t want to get caught.


	13. September 8th, 2019 - Morning

Bill and Stan successfully managed to sneak back into the gym without getting caught, and Stanley grabbed both of his neglected shoes when he got to the metal gate.

The lights were still off in the gym. It was 3:28 AM. After laying back down, both Bill and Stan fell asleep as soon as soon as their heads hit the pillows.

-

Richie was sitting next to him, shaking his shoulder and poking him in the face. “Get up. Your mom is here.”

With a soft groan, Stanley opened his eyes and reached up to rub them, getting all of the crust out. His  _ mom  _ was there? What? Why? And why was Richie waking him up? The soreness in his calves reminded him that he spent at least two hours running around in the dark hallways with Bill that night.

And then he remembered that he had Bill’s phone number. Holy shit.

“My mom?” Stan asked, sitting up and moving his balled fists away from his face to look at Richie. “Is she picking me up?”

“Yeah. She’s like, the only one here.”

The lights were still off, but he could see the inside of the gym clearer now. The sun wasn’t shining through the windows, but the sky was a dark blue, which let Stanley make out the lumps underneath sleeping bags and throw blankets easier. Why was his mom picking up when nobody was even awake yet?

He stood up and started to gather his things, glancing at the double doors he and Bill had escaped from the night before. There was a male teacher standing in front of them, holding it open, making eye contact with him. Probably trying to say  _ get your shit together already. _

Stan shoved his sleeping bag and pillow into his backpack, slipped his shoes on, and avoided stepping on Bill’s friends as he made his way to the small side-strip of the gym floor that people weren’t allowed to sleep on. As much as he wanted to stay and talk to Bill about the night before, he knew Bill probably wouldn’t want to talk to him in front of his friends. And anyway, what was there to say?  _ That was fun, thanks for giving me a second chance?  _

He decided it would be best if he said nothing. 

Stanley thanked the man holding the door open for him and turned the corner, pushing open another door and coming face to face with his mom’s car in the parking lot.

Reluctantly, he made his way across the road, yanking the door open and sitting down inside. He let his bag sit between his feet on the floorboard as she pulled out of her spot.

When they got onto the interstate, the sun started to rise. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry, i know this one is kinda short. hopefully the last two make up for it!
> 
> better chapters are coming soon :)


	14. September 10th, 2019

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the short update, and i don't know how frequent/infrequent updates will be because i'm working on a lot of other fics right now! i'll try to update this one as regularly as possible :)

All weekend, Stanley continually checked his phone at least once every thirty minutes, hoping, praying for a message from Bill. By Sunday, he wondered if Bill was waiting for a text from him instead- but decided not to send him one. He was nervous, and as much as he tried to build up the confidence to text him, he couldn’t decide on anything to say. As much as he wanted to talk to Bill, he didn’t want to embarrass himself in the process.

When he returned to school on Monday, Bill wasn’t there.

Stan was disappointed, and for the first twenty minutes of class, wondered if Bill was staying home to avoid talking to him. But he realized that was stupid- why would Bill avoid him if he had no problem spending time with him during the lock-in?

There was a silver lining, though- Stanley finally had something to text Bill.

While Mr. Wilson taught, he pulled out his phone.

**_Stan: Hey. Just wanted to check on you, are you sick?_ **

**_Stan: If you’re sick, I hope you feel better. :)_ **

The smiley face was a risky text, even for him, and he regretted sending it the moment it got delivered. It was creepy, and weird, and… god, what would Bill think?

But he couldn’t take it back, so he had to learn to live with it.

-

That night around 7 PM while he worked on his english paper, he received an answer.

**_Bill: not sick_ **

**_Bill: just didn’t feel like going. see you tomorrow._ **

The message was sadly underwhelming and brief, but at least Stanley knew the truth. And now he knew that he would see Bill soon.

-

Bill returned to school the next day, on the verge of being late to business class as usual. Stanley was excited to see him anyway- he wanted to see how Bill’s behavior around him would change, or if it would change at all. Surely, Bill wouldn’t ignore him now that they had the chance to talk, right?

“Hey,” Stan greeted once Bill sat down in his seat. 

Bill wore a white shirt with a black and red button-up flannel over it. He made eye contact with Stanley. “H-Hi.”

Something about Bill’s expression made him sad, and Stan wondered if he was still upset from whatever he was crying about last Friday. For a moment, he considered asking, but decided not to. He didn’t want to be intrusive, and if Bill declined the opportunity to talk about it before, why would he agree to it now?

“I hope you feel better.” Stan decided saying that would be good enough- that sentence alone brought up the fact that he was upset, and at the same time wished him well. Stanley turned away and pulled up Google Chrome on his computer, wondering if Bill would continue talking to him.

“...How.”

Stan turned back to face him. “What do you mean, how?”

“H-How do I f-fuh-f-feel better?” Bill asked, narrowing his eyes at Stan. “What ah-am I supposed to do?”

...How was he supposed to answer that?

_ Ask him to spend the night at your house. That’ll make him feel better. Then he’ll talk to you about it,  _ he told himself. No, Stanley was too much of a puss to ask something like that, and he knew it. “Umm.. distract yourself. That always helps me.”

“I can’t,” Bill whispered. “I’m in th-thuh-this stupid b-business class.”

He nodded knowingly. “What do you normally do when you’re sad?”

“Go to my f-fuh-friends house o-or talk t-tuh-to them, but w-we got in a stuh-st-stupid fight and now I c-can’t,” he muttered, turning away and crossing his arms. “They hate m-me.”

“...You can come to my house.” Hearing Bill bring up the fact he used to go to his friends’ house boosted his confidence in asking, and he knew it would sound natural because it was on topic. “Um, if you want. If you want to be alone today, that’s okay too,” he added quickly, not wanting to seem too pushy.

Bill made eye contact with him and smiled. “Y-You r-ruh-really want me in y-your house?”

“Um, yeah. You’re not… that bad. You know.”

He laughed. “W-Wow, th-thanks,” Bill stammered, his cheeks tinged light red. “Um… I’ll talk to m-my mom about it. Y-You whuh-walk home, right?”

Stanley nodded, staring at the redness on Bill’s cheeks. What did that mean? Was he nervous to go to his house, or did he actually… feel the same way?  _ He has a girlfriend. No, he fucking doesn’t feel the same way. Don’t get your hopes up.  _ “Yeah, I walk home.”

“Okay… wh-where are we gonna m-meet up ah-after school?”

“The parking lot is fine.”

Bill nodded back, smiling again and turning back to his computer. Stanley’s eyes lingered on him, tracing the shape of his face, the bridge below his nose and above his lip. 

Stanley couldn’t help but think that things were coming together. 


	15. September 10th, 2019- Afternoon

“God, I’m so sweaty,” Stanley muttered, wiping the sweat off of his forehead as he stepped onto his porch, fishing his keys out of his pocket. “Sorry.”

Bill smiled at him, watching him struggle with getting the key in the lock. “Ih-It’s okay. I’m suh-s-sweaty too...” he said, wiping his hands on his light gray cargo shorts and staring ahead at the door.

He finally managed to unlock the door with his shaky hands, watching Bill from the corner of his eye as he turned the knob and held it open for Bill to pass through. Bill smiled wider, passing Stanley up and standing in the center of his living room. “W-Wow, y-your house is ruh-r-reah-really nice,” he complimented, looking around.

Stanley smiled, stepping forward and locking the front door behind him. “I’m sure your house is nice too. What do you want to do? You got any ideas?” he asked, not really knowing how to distract Bill now that he was actually  _ in  _ his house.

“We could, um…” Bill mumbled, looking around. “D-Don’t know. Whuh-where should I p-puh-put my backpack?” he asked, still clutching the right strap in his hand. 

“Oh, sorry. My room. Follow me,” he said, running up the stairs, before remembering that he forgot to look through his room to make sure there wasn’t anything embarrassing that he didn’t want Bill to see. Stan didn’t know what  _ specifically  _ might be in there, but he would’ve liked to make sure anyway.

He opened the door and stepped inside, looking around. Stanley’s room was always clean, but then he saw it- the drawings and paintings of birds on the wall. Bill would probably think he was weird if he saw them, wouldn’t he? Stan bit his lip and turned to look at Bill.

“M-My house isn’t nuh-nice… my parents n-never clean. Ih-It looks like homeless puh-p-peah-people live in there,” Bill explained, dropping his backpack next to the door. His gaze fell on Stanley, then traveled away to the rest of the room.

The room fell silent for a moment- Stan wasn’t exactly sure what to say, and neither was Bill. “Y-Your birds are pruh-pretty,” he said, stepping closer to one of the paintings. “Did you buh-b-buy these from somebody?” Bill smiled, tracing his finger along the brush strokes.

His voice was caught up in his throat. Bill  _ liked  _ them? Bill thought the paintings were good enough to  _ buy? _

Stanley considered telling Bill the truth; that he painted them two years ago. But before he could decide, Bill turned back around. “Ah-Are you okay?”

“...I’m good,” he managed to get out, forcing a smile. “Sorry. I painted them, actually.”

“You did?”

Stanley nodded, turning away and plopping down on his bed to hide the redness on his face and avoid answering the question. “So, any ideas?” Stan asked, his eyes down on the carpet.

“Uh, no. I d-duh-don’t really have ideas, but… cuh-can I tell you s-suh-s-something?” Bill asked, tilting his head. He sat down on the bed next to Stanley, watching his face intently.

Stan had a feeling this was rather important. “Yeah?”

“I… write. Like, stuh-st-stories. You’re the only puh-person that k-knows about it. Aside from, uh…”

“Who?” Stan asked.

Bill shook his head. “Nevermind. Y-You’re the only puh-person who knows.”

_ Not even his girlfriend knows?  _ “That sounds cool, um… what kind of stories do you write?” Stan asked. Writing stories was the last thing he expected from Bill, but oddly enough, it fit. Football and baseball player with a secret passion for writing. Who would’ve known?

“M-Mostly horror stories, ih-it’s the only thing I’m good at wruh-writing. Any time I truh-try another genre, it sucks,” he admitted. “They’re buh-based on dreams I have… the m-majority of them are, I mean.”

Stan listened, letting a few seconds of silence pass in hopes that Bill would keep talking. He didn’t. “Oh… I could never write stories, that sounds too complicated,” Stanley smiled. “I like painting more. Do you think I could, um, read one of your stories? One day? It doesn’t have to be anytime soon.”

“...Maybe. I d-duh-don’t know, I’m not very g-good.”

“Hey- I don’t think I’m good at painting either, but you… you liked my paintings, right? So I’ll probably like your stories. I bet you’re really good at writing, Bill,” he said, trying to make Bill feel better about himself. He  _ really  _ wanted to read them- it would be nice to know what was going on in Bill’s mind, or in his dreams, at least.

Bill shrugged. “I’ll thuh-th-think about it..”

“Okay. So, um- I have a question. You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to,” he said, staring at Bill nervously as he waited for his answer.

“Go on.”

Stanley took a deep breath. “So- at the beginning of the year, Mr. Wilson knew who you were already. And he said ‘welcome back.’ Why did he already know you?” he asked, glad to have the question finally off his shoulders and up into the air. He couldn’t imagine this being a sensitive topic, and he wanted to know.

“B-Because I failed my freshman year, a-ah-and I was in his cluh-class before, so I h-had to retake it.” Bill crossed his arms, making eye contact with Stan.

“Oh. I didn’t know that you failed… why did you fail?”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “I dropped ouh-ouht.”

Stanley didn’t like the way Bill was looking at him, making him feel like he crossed some sort of line. What did he say that offended him? “Why did you drop out?” he asked, before adding, “is this a sensitive topic? We don’t have to talk about it, you know. I was just wondering.”

“I-” Bill paused, looking away and dropping his arms to his sides. “My little bruh-brother died,” he blurted. “That’s why.”

“Oh?” Stan asked, caught off-guard by the sudden statement. “I’m- sorry.”

Bill nodded. “And I h-ha-had a m-mental breakdown and truh-tried to k-kill myself, and I got put in a mental h-hopsital, and when I got out I truh-tried again. It ha-h-happened in October, and I k-kuh-keh-... um… k-... k-kept going in and o-ouht of the mental hospital. S-So I failed all m-my classes and h-had to retake all of them. Th-That’s why all my f-fuh-friends are sophomores and I’m n-not.”

A pang of tightness stirred in Stanley’s chest as Bill went on, explaining all of the things that happened to him last year… it was horrible, and he wished he could’ve been there for him, to listen to his feelings. To help. But there was no turning back time.

“I k-kn-know that’s a luh-lot to drop on you ah-at once, but- um, you ah-asked…” Bill apologized, looking away. “We can puh-pretend I didn’t say anything.”

“I don’t want to pretend,” he said back, shaking his head. “That’s horrible… you didn’t deserve to go through that.” Stanley was now at a loss for words. He put an arm around Bill, hopefully comforting him. “I’m here for you now if you need me.”

Bill smiled and leaned into Stan’s arm. “Th-Thanks. I appreciate i-it.”

“...Yeah. Do you want to keep talking about it, or do you want, um, to do something else? Because I don’t want to bring up those bad feelings for you again if-”

“No,” Bill cut him off. “We can talk ah-about it. I mean, I don’t h-have much eh-e-eh-else to say… unless you h-have questions.”

He looked away, thinking. Did he have any questions? “Were you with your friends when it happened? I mean- they know about it, right?”

Bill nodded.

“Okay… what was your little brother like? And how did he die?” Stanley was afraid he was going into bad territory, but he couldn’t help it- he wanted to know, and Bill was offering to answer questions.

“H-He was the fuh-f-fucking best. His name was Geh-G-Georgie… he died, um... “ Bill paused, tightly closing his eyes and scrunching up his nose. “He-”

It was obvious that Bill was struggling. “You don’t have to say.”

“Someone killed him. I- G-G-Georgie was muh-murdered.”

Stan nodded sagely, pulling Bill even closer to himself. “Did they catch the guy?”

“No.”

He nodded again, wishing he knew how to help. “I’m so sorry.”

Bill reached up to wipe his eyes with his sleeve, although Stan wasn’t sure there were any tears in his eyes. “Ih-It’s okay.”

“Those- those are all of my questions. I’m done. We can be done,” he repeated, hoping to reassure Bill that it could be over if he wanted it to be.

Bill turned to him, pulling his arm away. “Stan.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m g-gay. You knew thuh-that, right?” he asked.

He honestly couldn’t believe Bill would just come out and  _ say  _ it, but he was glad Bill did anyway. “...No?”

“You didn’t? The w-wh-whole time, you didn’t k-know?”

“No, I… I didn’t?” Stan answered.

“Oh.” He looked away, disappointed. “I ah-am. Are you?”

_ Oh shit.  _ Things were moving too quickly for Stan, and he wasn’t sure if he should come out to Bill now or later- if he admitted it now, and Bill liked him, what would happen? Would they get together?

And if he continually denied it, would he blow his chances?

Stan swallowed his spit. “I am. Gay, I mean.”

“Cool. Do y-yuh-y-you luh-like me?”

_ Oh god oh god what the fuck.  _ “Uh- yeah. I do.”

Bill stared at him, completely silent. He wasn’t sure if he maybe did something wrong, or if he was supposed to ask Bill out, or what. Did Bill like him? Why wasn’t he talking? “Why?” Stan asked, hoping Bill would elaborate a little.

“You do? You l-luh-like me?”

“Yeah,” Stan confirmed. “That’s what I said.”

Bill squinted. “How?”

“What? What do you mean, how? I like you, that’s how. I’m… nervous whenever I’m around you, and I think you’re cute, and uh- you make me happy. And I’d date you.” Stan stopped himself from rambling, deciding to get to the point. “If you like me back, we can get together, or wait if you want- I know this is moving, uh, really fast.”

“We don’t have to wait,” Bill smiled. “We both l-luh-like each other, and I- it would be fun dating you, I thuh-think.”

_ Fun? I’m not fun. At all.  _ “But- what if we break up?”

“Who cuh-cares?” Bill smiled. “We’re tuh-t-teenagers, it’s okay.”

“Yeah- yeah. I guess you’re right,” he said, smiling and looking away. Stan always viewed relationships as something he had to take seriously, something that could lead to marriage- but he had a lot of years ahead of him to decide on stuff like that. And he did love Bill. He was sure of it.

Bill watched him, frowning. “We don’t h-have to if you don’t wuh-w-want to. I can-”

“I do!” Stan spoke up. “I do wanna date you, but I haven’t really dated anyone… before. So if I’m stupid with these things, you have to tell me.”

“I wuh-will,” Bill whispered, grabbing his hand. “Don’t w-worry. This doesn’t have to be a nuh-normal relationship.”

He stared down at their hands, clutched together. What was a normal relationship supposed to be like? “Okay,” he agreed. It might’ve happened fast, but he knew that he liked Bill. He knew that he would enjoy dating Bill, as un-ordinary as it would be- he loved Bill, with his entire stupid little teenage heart. If Bill had waited to confess, he wasn’t sure it would’ve ever happened.

“So whuh-what do you w-want to do now?” Bill asked, standing up. “I could tuh-take you to the Quarry.”

“The  _ what?” _

As Bill explained, Stanley subtly found a way to hold hands with him again, watching the wrinkles around his eyes changed as he went on, explaining what the Quarry was and what his friends (the Losers) normally did when they were down there. And how there was a group of boys (the Bowers Gang) that would terrorize him, and broke Eddie’s arm once, and how they broke into an abandoned crackhead house on Neibolt Street.

Stanley loved listening to him. His voice, the stutter that disappeared whenever he felt calm or comfortable, the way his voice faltered when he said certain words- heaven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that this chapter took me 6 days to post and that this ended kind of abruptly, but i couldn't think of anything else to keep the plot going and my mental health isn't doing too good. i hope you enjoyed reading though


End file.
